Containing Trauma

In this lucid and cogently-argued book, Christine Hallett explores the nature of the practices developed by nurses and their volunteer-assistants during the First World War. She argues that nurses found meaning in their complex and stressful work by identifying it as a process of 'containing trauma'. Broad in its scope and detailed in its research, the book analyses the work of nurses from Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa and the United States of America. It draws on highly personal writings: letters and diaries drawn from archives and libraries throughout the world. This wide-ranging book explores a range of treatment scenarios, from the Western and Eastern Fronts to the Eastern Mediterranean, Mesopotamia and India. It considers both the efforts of nurses to provide physical, emotional and moral containment to their patients, and the work they did to maintain their own physical and emotional integrity.

ISBN 0719079586   Pages 288 ISBN13 9780719079580 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 522 Publisher Manchester University Press   Published in Manchester Imprint Manchester University Press   Series title Cultural History of Modern War Format Hardback   Height (mm) 216 Publication date 01 Jan 2010   Width (mm) 138 DEWEY 940.475   Spine width (mm) 28 DEWEY edition DC22   Academic level Tertiary education, Professional / Scholarly

		List of illustrations
1		Introduction: 'Containing Trauma': First World War nurses' personal writings		1
2		Containing physical trauma on the Western Front		27
3		Relief and restoration: rebuilding the physical self		84
4		Nursing in 'far flung places'		127
5		Emotional containment		155
6		Self-containment		194
7		Conclusion: First World War nurses as 'containers of trauma'		224
		References		230
		Index		253

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